Tho Yuen Chicken Rice Restaurant is a historical Cantonese restaurant, located at the cross junction of Campbell Street and Cintra Street. Housed in a two-storey heritage building, business has been brisk for more than two decades. The restaurant serves an excellent fare of dim sum for breakfast and varieties of noodles, porridge and chicken rice during lunch hour.

Coupled with relatively clean surroundings, Tho Yuen exudes the kind of atmosphere for a typical Chinese restaurant. The restaurant designed with an air well in the middle hall is a rare sight in modern housing architecture. This feature serves to allow the air circulating well.

The variety of dim sum offered here at Tho Yuen is authentic and plentiful. One of their famous dishes is the oval shaped homemade egg tarts. These egg tarts with slightly thick pastry are flavorful and just at the right sweetness. Customers are seen flocking to Tho Yuen as early as 7am for these precious egg tarts as they run out very early.

Besides its signature dish, Tho Yuen also offers several dozen other dim sum dishes. Among the classic favorites are assorted prawn and meat dumplings, stew Phoenix Talons with soft cartilage and Lo Mai Gai, which is essentially steamed glutinous rice with chicken, mushroom and Chinese sausages.

As lunch time approaches, the dim sum starts running out. Cooked dishes and noodles are served instead. Tho Yuen serves up steamed fish head with Hor Fun noodles in a wonderful aroma soy sauce. It’s delicious as the dish draws the natural sweetness of the fish. It is best eaten with cut red chili in soy sauce. Another dish which never fails to tickle the taste buds is the braised duck and ginger noodles. With slow braising, the duck meat is tender.

Last but not least is the dish that Tho Yuen is most famous for; their very own chicken rice. The name of the shop is even associated with chicken rice. From the old generation to the new, the recipe remains the same as ever. The chicken rice meal comes with the classic steamed white chicken and roast chicken, teamed with steaming hot white rice and chili sauce.

There are several establishments in Penang that still maintain their façade, culture and cuisine; and Tho Yuen is one for the ages. The restaurant is open daily except Tuesdays. Business starts at about six in the morning, and wraps up around three in the afternoon.

Tho Yuen Chicken Rice Restaurant

94 Campbell Street 10100 Penang, Malaysia

Tel: +60 4 2614672